Not a big enough deal for anyone to raise my allowance higher than ten dollars a week, apparently. But a big enough deal that I have to have a bodyguard follow me around everywhere I go, just in case some Euro-trash terrorist in a ponytail and black leather pants takes it into his head to kidnap me.
The empress knows all about this—what a bummer it is, I mean, being just a normal person one day, and then having your face on the cover of People magazine the next. She even gave me some advice: She told me I should always make sure my kimono is securely fastened before I raise my arm to wave to the populace.
I thanked her, even though I don’t actually own a kimono.
11:30 p.m.–I am so tired on account of having gotten up so early to go to Long Island, I have yawned in the empress’s face twice. I have tried to hide these yawns the way Grandmère taught me to, by clenching my jaw and refusing to open my mouth. But this only makes my eyes water, and the rest of my face stretch out like I am hurtling through a black hole. Grandmère gives me the evil eye over her salad with pears and walnuts, but it is no use. Even her malevolent stare cannot shake me from my state of extreme drowsiness.
Finally, my father notices, and grants me a royal reprieve from dessert. Lars drives me back to the apartment. Grandmère is clearly upset because I am leaving before the cheese course. But it is either that, or pass out in the fromage bleu. I know that in the end, Grandmère will have retribution, undoubtedly in the form of forcing me to learn the names of every member of the Swedish royal family, or something equally as heinous.
Grandmère always gets her way.
12:00 a.m.–After a long and exhausting day of giving thanks to the founders of our nation—those genocidal hypocrites known as the Pilgrims—I finally go to bed.
And that concludes Mia Thermopolis’s Thanksgiving.
Saturday, December 6
Over.
That is what my life is. O-V-E-R.
I know I have said that before, but this time I really mean it.
And why? Why THIS TIME? Surprisingly, it’s not because:
Three months ago, I found out that I’m the heir to the throne of a small European nation, and that at the end of this month, I am going to have to go to said small European nation and be formally introduced for the first time to the people over whom I will one day reign, and who will undoubtedly hate me, because given that my favorite shoes are my combat boots and my favorite TV show is Baywatch, I am so not the royal-princess type.
Or because:
My mother, who is expecting to give birth to my Algebra teacher’s child in approximately seven months, recently eloped with said Algebra teacher.
Or even because:
At school they’ve been loading us down with so much homework—and after school, Grandmère’s been torturing me so endlessly with all the princess stuff I’ve got to learn by Christmas—that I haven’t even been able to keep up with this journal, let alone anything else.
Oh, no. It’s not because of any of that. Why is my life over?
Because I have a boyfriend.
At fourteen years of age, I suppose it’s about time. I mean, all my friends have boyfriends. All of them, even Lilly, who blames the male gender for most, if not all, of society’s ills.
And okay, Lilly’s boyfriend is Boris Pelkowski, who may, at the age of fifteen, be one of the nation’s leading violin virtuosos, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t tuck his sweater into his pants, or that he doesn’t have food in his braces more often than not. Not what I would call ideal boyfriend material, but Lilly seems to like him, which is all that matters.
I guess.
I have to admit, when Lilly—possibly the pickiest person on this planet (and I should know, having been best friends with her since kindergarten)—got a boyfriend, and I still didn’t have one, I pretty much started to think there was something wrong with me. Besides my gigantism and what Lilly’s parents, the Drs. Moscovitz, who are psychiatrists, call my inability to verbalize my inner rage.
And then, one day, out of the blue, I got one. A boyfriend, I mean.
Well, okay, not out of the blue. Kenny started sending me all these anonymous love letters. I didn’t know it was him. I kind of thought (okay, hoped) someone else was sending them. But in the end, it turned out to be Kenny. And by then I was in too deep, really, to get out. So voila! I had a boyfriend.
Problem solved, right?
Not. So not.
And it isn’t that I don’t like Kenny. I do. I really do. We have a lot in common. For instance, we both appreciate the preciousness of not just human, but all life forms, and refuse to dissect fetal pigs and frogs in Bio. Instead, we are writing term papers on the life cycles of various grubs and mealworms.
And we both like science fiction. Kenny knows a lot more about it than I do, but he has been very impressed so far by the extent of my familiarity with the works of Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, both of whom we were forced to read in school (though he doesn’t seem to remember this).